


Stand-To for the 5,533

by LauramourFromOz



Series: Lest We Forget [3]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Battle of Fromelles, F/F, Lest We Forget, Mostly Pre-Canon, Remembrance Day 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8520103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauramourFromOz/pseuds/LauramourFromOz
Summary: Jack Robinson at Fromelles.At the going down of the sun, and in the morning.We will remember them.Lest we forget.Check out my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LaurAmourFromOz





	

**Author's Note:**

> I usually do something set on Remembrance day for Remembrance day but since this year is the centenary of The Battle of Fromelles I thought I’d do that instead.

There was mud, mud and blood. The air stank of it, of death and dysentery. It would have been a nice place. Fromelles. A quaint little town in the north of France surrounded by countryside. At present the landscape was gouged with trenches, a few brave blades of grass poking through the blood tinged mud like barbed wire. And bodies, living and dead, Germans, Australians, British, scattered. Shots and mortars rang in the air. It was as if it had been going on for days, weeks, months even. Charge, retreat, regroup, repeat. It must be August by now surely. They had all lost track of the passage of time long ago. So many dead or near it, Jack Robinson looked around him, taking stock of his unit. Christopher, where was Christopher. He steeled himself, took a breath, looked again. Still couldn’t find him. He looked over the trench. There he was, unmoving among the bodies. Was he alive? Jack couldn’t be sure, probably not. While they waited for the shower of bullets and mortar to subside Jack went through Christopher’s things with constabulary efficiency. Among it there was a letter, one that couldn’t be found. Jack had promised Christopher that much. The brass would never find out the secret confided in the dead of night an eternity ago. Jack looked through Christopher’s things again with no success. Damn, he must have it on him. That complicated matters. There was nothing for it, one man’s reputation and another’s freedom was on the line. Finally the mortar and bullets stopped Jack climbed over the trench deaf to the shouts to fall back witch chased him the fifty, hundred feet to Christopher’s side. He was already cold. Jack searched his pockets for the letter. A white hot pain tore through his flank then shoulder, then flank again sending him into the mud and blood. He was vaguely aware of more shouts from the trenches and then, there she was. Jack thought she was an angel. Crap, he can’t be dead. He blinked and cleared his vision somewhat. No, she wasn’t an angel, but she was near enough, she was a nurse.

  
“Letter,” he managed to sputter, though he had no idea how.

  
She understood and swiftly retrieved it from Christopher’s pocket before dragging him back to the trench. He didn’t register it at the time but, only feet from the trench she grunted in pain as a bullet pierced her shoulder. Jack later supposed he should have registered this at the time but he hadn’t.

  
Back in the trench they were both being shouted at. He was vaguely aware of the sounds but not the words. They were angry. A nurse for a digger wasn’t a useful trade.

  
Next thing he knew he was in a field hospital.

  
“Welcome back.” The voice was vaguely familiar, feminine, and coming from the bed next to him. It was the Nurse from the front. Her left arm was in a sling. She was average height, slightly stocky, obviously accustomed to hard work, usefully muscular, Brown hair, hazel eyes, attractive, but not in the traditional sense and vaguely masculine.

  
“What happened?”

  
“You went to retrieve this from your friend’s body and got shot. So did I.”

  
“Sorry.”

  
“Don’t worry about it, ‘tis but a flesh wound. Kate, Kate Southon.”

  
“Jack Robinson, Jack.” He held out his hand for the letter.

  
“Look, Jack. It might be safer if I hold onto it. I assume you know what it is and who it’s addressed to?”

  
“Yea, I know. Love of his life. Alexander… someone, Gregson? Greyson? Greyson. I promised I’d make sure he got it if Chris didn’t make it.”

  
“It’s signed C.A.S.”

  
“Yea, Christopher Aguste Sullivan.”

  
“I’m Caitlin Angela Southon. If they find it on me after I die they’ll send it, no questions. They find it on your body Alexander will be asked a lot of questions he can’t answer.”

  
“Why would you do that? Protect someone you don’t even know.”

  
“Because we’re kin. Christopher, Alexander and I.”

  
“You’re?”

  
“Yep.”

  
They said very little on the subject after that in the three days before Jack was discharged and sent back to the front. In that time they had struck up a fast friendship.

  
Jack could scarcely believe the whole ordeal had lasted only one day. Early estimates put the Australian losses at over five thousand dead. Seven thousand including the British.

* * *

 Kate and Jack didn’t meet again until, quite by chance, they were on the same boat home at the end of the war.

  
When they eventually docked in Melbourne they delivered Christopher’s letter to Alexander Greyson. He had opened the door with such hope, thinking them to be Christopher. He’d been waiting, hoping for over four years for the man he loved to return home. Never daring to look at the lists of the dead. Jack in his scant pre-war years as a part of the Victorian constabulary had never quite developed the knack for the death knock. As much as he wished he had. Alexander broke. Jack could do nothing but look on and as he watched the grief consume this man so completely any last shred of disapproval he held for people of Alexander’s particular disposition dissolved.

  
Rosie had been less than thrilled to have Kate as a houseguest for the next week but Jack had insisted. Jack had seen her off at the train bound for Adelaide, quite sure they’d never meet again.

  
They would meet again, ten years later in May of 1929. Kate had been in Melbourne for a little more than two months. They had been, almost all of this time, on the periphery of each other’s lives. Jack, now recently divorced, revolved almost exclusively around a certain Lady Detective. Said Lady Detective’s oldest and dearest friend was a certain Lady Doctor, of whom Jack was both in awe and slightly afraid. Said Lady Doctor happened to work closely with Kate. The two, being very alike, had struck up a fast and close friendship and when Kate had needed a place to live, well the good Doctor had offered up her spare room witch, in a very short period of time, had become maintained exclusively for show.

* * *

 Jack and Kate stood together watching the sun come up over another twentieth of July with two fingers of scotch each.

  
“I bet it was beautiful Fromelles, you know, before we carved out our trenches and hung our barbed wire.” Kate said after a silence between them.

  
“Seven thousand dead in a single day. I don’t know if could ever be anything but bloody now.”

  
“Nine thousand.”

  
“What?”

  
“Nine thousand dead, not seven thousand. Five and a half thousand Australians, one and a half thousand British, two thousand German.”

  
“Of course. To Christopher, and all the rest.” Jack said raising his glass.

  
“To the five thousand, five hundred and thirty three.” Kate echoed, raising her own glass.

  
As the last brushes of dawn cleared Doctor Elisabeth MacMillan joined them on her front steps. It was still early, before seven and the street had yet to rouse and everything was still and quiet. Almost peaceful. After a short while Jack took his leave.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if Jack was a policeman before the war, I assume so.
> 
> Also: the title refers to the number of Australian casualties at The Battle of Fromelles. it remains the bloodiest single day in Australian Military History.


End file.
